“Know that the faerie rades began again in 1969. Know that the Grey Neighbors came calling from field and hedge, from shadow and sinkhole, from frost and flame, from Canaveral and Altamont and Woodstock and Spahn Farm to bring slaves, playthings and quarry to their realms. Know that some of those stolen returned, through guile, force or will, and found their lives stolen, became strangers in their own skins. Know that your Keepers still seek you out. Know and go, oh changeling child, from the barrens and the wilds…”– Backmasked message in Stairway to Heaven; female speaker unknown

In 1973, the last Ard Ri of the Five Boroughs led the lords and ladies of the Courts of Dawn and Twilight against the Shimmering Brigades of Faerie, holding back the Others at the cost of their own lives. None stepped forward to replace them, as the remaining Lost tried to rebuild and the symbols of the two courts and the Ard Ri had been lost during the Battle of Fifth and Fifty-Ninth.

The commoners stepped into the breach in 1976, when the Army of No stormed through the Hedge, seeking plunder and the return of their wayward property. Where serried ranks faced off against the enemy in one brutal clash three years earlier, the hordes were ground down by an unceasing onslaught of guerilla warfare facing magic, muscle and in one instance a stolen city bus before retreating back behind the Thorns.

One year later, life moves on. The motleys and freebooters have started to organize and claim their territory, whether it’s the Manikin Queen Coco holding court at Studio 54 or Screams-By-Night and the New World Tribe claiming Central Park for the Lost of the First Nations. They’re keeping to the old rules, staying to the shadows and keeping quiet, but heads are getting cracked uptown and down by those who want to carve out their own turf, while others are quietly making their mark or marking time in the daylight world.

And, in the swirl of music, intrigue and chaos that makes up the other New York in the summer of 1977, it’s easy to ignore the flutter of strange pennons in a flickering light or a call to arms in the bark of an angry dog in the distance…